It´s been exactlly two years after the verdicts in the #Fluchthilfeprozess/ smuggling trial in Wiener Neustadt against eight refugees – most of them being activists in the Refugee Protest Camp Vienna. Today, we want to stand in solidarity with all migrants and refugees supporting each other in crossing borders and in their struggles for freedom of movement.
The number of persons supporting migrant mobility and therefor being surveilled, criminalized, sentenced, imprisoned and banned from the countries as so-called human smugglers is constantly growing all over Fortress EUrope – since ways of entering or passing through EU countries have been widely illegalized and therefor become more and more difficult without assisting structures. In Austria more than 1 000 persons have been sentenced guilty under the law of §114 FPG “Smuggling” since the year 2015 – almost all of them Non-Austrian citizens. They are conceived as criminals threatening the country´s sovereignty in managing migration.

Our friend, a refugee accused in a “smuggling” trial (currently being appealed), asked us for (financial) support in his current asylum process. Therefor we are organizing this solidarity evening- together with the Precarity Office Vienna and the space W23.

We are very excited the film team of “On the Bride´s Side” gave us permission to screen their powerful, award-winning movie on assistance in crossing borders. We are looking forward to create a space of exchange and inspiration with you.

Cocktails, Food, and our new T-shirts – Donations for legal support.
Entrance to the screening is for free.
Film starts at 7.00 pm – be on time!

Unfortunately the space is not wheelchair accessible – Let us know if you want support!

The evening and film screening is part of this weeks´Fluchthilfe & Du *ACTION DAYS AGAINST THE CRIMINALISATION OF MIGRATION*,
where we will come together to
INFORM and
LISTEN (to) each other,
ORGANIZE resistance and solidarity structures.
The whole program will be updated daily on our fb-page and www.fluchthilfe.at
Check it out!

SYNOPSIS:
A Palestinian poet and an Italian journalist meet five Palestinians and Syrians in Milan who entered Europe via the Italian island of Lampedusa after fleeing the war in Syria. They decide to help them complete their journey to Sweden – and hopefully avoid getting themselves arrested as traffickers – by faking a wedding. With a Palestinian friend dressed up as the bride and a dozen or so Italian and Syrian friends as wedding guests, they cross halfway over Europe on a four-day journey of three thousand kilometres. This emotionally charged journey not only brings out the stories and hopes and dreams of the five Palestinians and Syrians and their rather special traffickers, but also reveals an unknown side of Europe – a transnational, supportive and irreverent Europe that ridicules the laws and restrictions of the Fortress in a kind of masquerade which is no other than the direct filming of something that really took place on the road from Milan to Stockholm from the 14th to the 18th of November 2013.

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1-Euro Jobs in Hungary: From Welfare to Workfare State
Activists of the Hungarian “Workfare Movement for the Future” talk about their organizing strategies

On Tuesday 4 October Precarity Office hosts the Hungarian advocacy group Workfare Movement for the Future who will talk about the compulsory workfare regime in Hungary and their experiences in self-organisation and fighting for the rights of workfare workers since 2012.

From Welfare to Workfare

Reducing joblessness was apparently impossible in Hungary until Viktor Orbán introduced compulsory workfare. Since 2012 all jobs that employment services offer to unemployed people have to be accepted, even if they require far lower qualifications than those possessed by the applicant. Those who reject a job, lose their social benefit (circa €76 per month since 2012). The compulsory workfare regime has involved more and more unemployed people since 2010, reaching a monthly average 129,100 in 2013 and 197,000 in January 2016. This exceptionally high increase, together with a growing number of Hungarians working abroad (a.o. in Austria!), helps explain why there was a decrease in the number of the officially unemployed from 11% in 2011/2012 to 6,1% in 2016.

Fighting Unemployment with Forced Labor

The Hungarian government promotes the Workfare System as their primary tool to counter poverty and unemplyoment, and celebrates its “success” by further expanding it each year. This success comes at a high price for the workfare workers: not only is the system draconian and coercive, creating cheap “forced labor” for the state and for private employers, it is also exploitative and underpaid. The government introduced a new law about workfare in 2011, which cut the wages of people employed in the Workfare System (70% of the minimum wage) and violated their workers’ rights (CVI law of 2011). While minimum wage is approximately 357 €/month in Hungary, workfare workers receive a net monthly income of around €170 (those who completed secondary school education get a bit more). This is less than 60 per cent of the minimum subsistence for a single person as stipulated by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office.

Showing Resistance: Workfare Movement for the Future

The Workfare Movement for the Future aims to raise awareness of the limits and problems of the Hungarian Workfare System, and of the economical, labour and social discrimination of people working in it, including the violation of their rights. The group works towards these goals by gathering the experiences of people employed in the Workfare System and through advocacy and empowerment. They fight against mistreatment by solving individual cases, as well as by informing the general public and the decision-makers.

Demands
Salary: Wages should reach the minimum wage again!
Contracts: The contracts should be long-term! There should be no inhuman conditions to exclude people! The employees should have holiday entitlement! The employees should only be given work that is really included in the contract!
Treatment: There should be no humiliating treatment! The government should communicate appropriately about the unemployed!
Way out: There should be a way out of the Workfare System through trainings and job creation.More information: http://www.mszeh.hu/en/causes/workfare/

1-Euro-Jobs: From Welfare to Workfare in Austria?

Recent proposals for the new integration law by among others Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) want to oblige unemployed refugees to take on 1-Euro jobs. With this return of 1-Euro jobs to the political agenda, it is important to think about the consequences of such measures and learn more about related workers’ struggles in Hungary, where people who are long-term unemployed (over 3 months!) are forced to become underpaid workfare workers.

Two years after our first Precarity Office session in Vienna, we meet again to celebrate our space, our common struggles, our defeats and precarious love. We enter the next Precarity Office Year with cooking, open assembly and mutual advice at 18:00 and pass to the celebrating mood at 20:00. More discussions, events, mutual help concerning problems with and at work, workshops, parties, love, solidarity to come in 2016! Let’s party on that ♥

Shakes and drinks. Politics and precarity. Love and solidarity as always!

Whether you have been a regular visitor of the Precarity Office or not… our place is warm and you are welcome. So drop by and celebrate with us!

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”

20h Event : “If the doors shut behind you, you are a migrant #2:
Precarity has no borders!“

The implementation of an allegedly universal „Freedom of Movement“ for European citizens within the EU has always been closely tied to restrictive measures of constraining the mobility of people without European citizenship. In accordance to the needs of European labour markets, the European migration regime attempts to regulate migration in order to „sort out“ people that are „needed“ – unprotected labour force for seasonal work, f.e. – and people that are not „needed“ and therefore unwanted. In last years, the restrictive measures to hinder „unwanted“ people from moving to the EU have taken on more and more violent forms. Especially at the EU’s outer frontiers at the Mediterranean, migration policies have reached a level of violence that a number of migration researchers start comparing the situation to a war against migrants [1].

In this second event on Mobility and Migration, we want to inform ourselves about the specific nature the border regime has taken on at the Greek, Italian and Spanish borders – connecting these sights to the policies at Austria’s „internal border“, where the criminalization of migration centres around measures such as the Dublin Regulation or the § 114 against “human smuggling”.

However, resistance against the violent European migration regime has also risen in the last years – especially due to the Refugee movements in many European countries. In the second part of this event, we want to discuss practices of resistance: Activists from WatchTheMed will present the new Alarm Phone Project established to support rescue operations for migrants in distress at sea, and we will discuss forms to get involved into current struggles around mobility.
[UPDATE:] Two activists involved in the ongoing “Schleppereiprozess” [2] against eight people accused of human smuggling will join us and talk about support for people criminalized under § 114!

Come and discuss with us!

Precarity has no borders – Mobility for all!

Precarity Office Vienna
@ Wipplingerstrasse 23, 1010 Vienna (down some stairs – unfortunately the building is not wheelchair accessible, get in touch if you want us to figure out a way anyways)

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“If the doors shut behind you, you are a migrant” #1: Migration and Mobility in the EU in times of the crisis4 November 2014

The first part of Precarity Office’s event trilogy on migration to and within the EU focused on the two terms used to describe the movement of people in Europe: mobility and migration.

We were interested in what the differences and similarities between two terms are, how they are used in European regulations and policies, and how we perceive our own displacement in Europe.

Käthe and Silvia introduced the militant research they had carried out and presented at the Expanding the Margins: Migration, Mobilities, Borders conference in Berlin. They focused on three main questions, which they addressed in interviews with migrant/mobile people in Austria (among others members of Prekär Café). In the exchange following their presentation, we also used these questions to structure the discussion in small groups.

#1 what experiences do/did you have with Anmeldebescheinigung (registration certificate required in Austria, as well as most EU countries)?
#2 do you see yourself as migrant or mobile?
#3 in your opinion what are the differences between the two terms?

20h Event : “If the doors shut behind you, you are a migrant”
Migration and Mobility in the EU in times of the crisis

Mobility is promoted, migration is regulated – that sums up the EU position.
Since the begining of the crisis, the flows of intra-european migration have increased and at the same time the Free Movement of Persons within the EU became an object of various regulations. How do we experience this situation? This evening we will try to approach the topic by asking us amongst other things the following three questions: “What are your experiences with the “Anmeldebescheinigung”? “, “Do you see yourself as an migrant or would you describe yourself as “mobile”? , “What are the differences between mobility and migration in your opinion?”.

[ENG] 4th February ::: Poison and Gold: An Infosession on Gold Mining in the European Crisis

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At our February session we are running an informative event about gold mining in Spain, Romania and Greece. In this session we will discuss the parallel development of gold mining projects around Europe and the rather similar strategies that state authorities and gold mining corporations use, to force them onto local communities. The exploitation of the environment for profit is the new ”success story” of the governments of the European countries most affected by the economic crisis. Continue reading →

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18-23h Bar and Precarity Office are open, with food, chat and organising. In december we’re taking some time to meet and make plans with new people who joined the office and to imagine the next year together. All welcome!

20-22h Presentation of the book ‘Precarity and Freedom’, organised by Prekär Café. This publication focuses on feminist research, cultural critique and self-organisation, questioning the relations between precarity and freedom. In German, translation upon request.

[ENG] 5th November ::: Work and rights. An info session for self-defense and collective struggle

At our November session we are running a self-educational workshop around labour rights, contracts and unions, as well as internships. We want to use this session to clue ourselves up about legal matters here in Austria, to know how to better advise and support each other and fight exploitative conditions. Rather than becoming experts, we want to educate ourselves to cover basic questions and learn about our rights. The evening will feature short presentations on the above topics, an open Q+A and an info-quiz, as well as food and drink. All welcome, bring your questions and knowledges!